5 MARCH 1921, Page 9

THE BRITISH INDUSTRIES FAIR AT SHEPHERD'S BUSH.

AT the British Industries Fair at Shepherd's Bush there are four miles of stands. It is conceivable that this is what makes me feel as if the aesthetic quality of the goods shown was not quite so high as last year.

Yet even so, during an afternoon passed in a rapid but by no means exhaustive perambulation I came across a few beautiful and a great many ingenious things. But ! The Artistic Shade Company, for instance, has some beautiful lampshades. A hanging lamp, for example, with a yellow and orange shade with a sort of Minoan design on it in orange, terra-cotta, and black ; another made like a beautiful intricate Chinese pagoda, chiefly in yellows and Chinese blue ; and a third fantastic nursery lampshade in the shape of a Noah's Ark in beautiful viridian greens, pale yellows, and cherry pinks. But here we come to my chief grievance. The shade is not priced at the Exhibition, but I saw its fellow in the firm's shop-window in Kensington High Street, and it cost £12 12s. Now it is a frequent complaint among traders that you cannot sell beautiful goods ; but allowing, Of course, for a certain amount of perversity in mankind, isn't the truth of the matter that manufacturers have got an absurd idea that the public will not believe a thing is beautiful unless they are charged a high price for it ? That plea was put forward to me by a stall-holder. I asked the price of an attractive reproduction of an Egyptian statuette. He told me half a crown, but said, laughing : " If you were an art connoisseur I should charge you 15s., or you would think nothing of it." It is a pity this idea has grown up, for it has given rise to a correspond- ing idea in the purchaser, " Ah, there is a beautiful thing. It is therefore sure to be too expensive for me to buy." My friend of the Egyptian goddess had some of the worst examples of flamelit ladies who grew out of vases, little boys asleep in water lilies or bowing and presenting bouquets to damsels in the costumes of the eighties, that I have ever seen. I reproached him with these. He told me he hated them as much as I did, also that they were designed in Germany, and that he proposed to go on making and selling them for the sufficient reason that he had to live. I asked him if he thought the public wanted such things. He said, " No, but the buyers do." That the public itself was gradually becoming much more enlightened he agreed. This is of course partly due to the efforts of such organizations as the Design and Industries Association and the British Institute of Industrial Art. The latter organization has a pleasant little exhibition there which includes some of Mr. Charles Vyse's small pottery figures ; among them his Balloon Woman and his fascinating Cockney Madonna and Child. It is also showing some of Miss Parnell's pottery, some of the Pelican Press printing, and some of Mr. Lovat Fraser's gay and attractive decorations for advertising. Here was indeed an oasis, and I hope that the travellers and buyers may profit thereby. Alas ! many of those of whom I asked could not so much as direct me to the stand !

Messrs. Carter of Poole are showing their very pleasant type of very simple unglazed pottery. They were originally tile makers, but on the outbreak of the war, when much of their export trade was stopped, they experi- mented with this kind of work. They, I am glad to say, do make an effort to cut the price down, the smallest of their articles costing about a shilling each. The pots are hand- made, thrown on a wheel, and they have considerable individuality and beauty of texture. Incidentally, I am glad to see confirmation, in Mr. Joseph Thorp's little pamphlet on these pots, of my opinion that it is the more old-fashioned, less-instructed buyers who are the present great propagators of bad tastes : " An opinion from which I have lately found a good deal of evidence is that it is not good business for buyers to assume that they know all about public taste. There are many publics ; and there is a growing feeling for beauty and simplicity in things made." These new connoisseurs of colour and form are very many and not very rich, and they are not being properly catered for by English makers. As for the toys, I unfortunately did not have time to see all the stalls, but I saw enough to confirm me in my opinion that there are a great many old-fashioned firms still left in England. I ventured to ask questions in several instances, as to whether, for instance, certain stuffed dolls were wash- able, or whether some little engines and " shops " did not break rather easily. I appeared to have been the first person to suggest to these stall-holders that their goods were intended for children. It had never occurred to them that dolls' clothes should either not be of dirt-catching material or, still better, should take off for washing. It is short-sighted policy to make goods merely to sell. I wish, by the way, that the Department of Overseas Trade would organize some exhibition in which textiles might be shown. One is always tantalized by the knowled.ze that there are wonderful cotton prints being made in England for export only to savage tribes—beautiful bright stuffs, blue and purple and red and orange—and cheap. An exhibition such as I suggest might bring them to light. There is, of course, obvious reason for the costliness of hand-woven stuffs and hand-made toys and trifles. But the effect of their high price is none the less unfortunate. For instance, a most fascinating shop has been started for the custom of motorists in the village of Gomshall in Surrey. Here really charming trifles are sold—candlesticks, baskets, toys, bird-cages, and necklaces. The owner of the shop told me that the difficulty with these most attractive small works of art was not to procure them but to sell them. I think I know why. Not that there are no cheap things at " The Little Peasant Shop," but I cannot imagine any difficulty in selling any of the trifles which the public could afford to buy.

A. -W.-E.